Storing digital photos

[tworeefs]

Not really a boating question, but is there a clever way of storing digital photos on a PC without using up huge amounts of disk space?

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[Colin_S]

Best bet IMO would be to write them to a CD. If you have a major crash you could lose them if you rely on the hard drive.

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[Talbot]

Get a DVD re-writer, and put your piccies on that (or even on CD) I keep two copies.

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[tworeefs]

The reason I ask is that at the moment I backup all my data to an online data backup service and the photos (which don't compress) are increasingly a large (and thus relatively expensive) part of this. I'm really looking for a solution that allows me to continue to backup online but reduces the data size.

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[Colin_S]

Have a look at <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.winzip.com/>this link</A> for some ideas.

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[BrendanS]

jpg files

You can reduce the size of images quite dramatically without any loss of quality with some practice. It's bit of a black art though, as very difficult to explain. Best way is to play.

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[Anthony]

presuming that you dont want to keep all your photos at the high resolution typically ofered by modern digital cameras, then you have a few choices:

1) turn down the resolution or image quality on the camera, so they are smaller to begin with, has the advantage u can store more on the camera at any time

2) once you have them on a PC run them thru an application in bulk to reduce them in size / quality, this has the advantage that if you have any great pictures you preffer to keep in high res for printing then just dont reduce those ones.

If they are only for displaying on the PC and internet then most average users would struggle to tell the difference when reduced, it when rpinting large images that you want hight resolution.

I would also recommend a CD or DVD writer though, invaluable for backing up.

Anthony

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[BrendanS]

winzip works well on compressible files, but not great on raw image files. Jpeg works far better as is designed for image files

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[boatone]

The only substantial reduction in image file sizes comes from jpg compression. Most domestic digital cameras already do this to a greater or lesser degree. The amount of compression very much depends on the degree of detail iin the image and the reproduction quality you want to maintain.
Winzip and other zip type programmes are very good at reducing data size for documents and vector diagrams, charts etc but have virtually no effect on image file sizes.
Give us a little more info about the file types you are using and I might be able to make a few suggestions but storing on CD or DVD is probably the best route or, as many of us piccymongers do these days an external hard drive is great...I have a Maxtor 250Gig external drive which cost under £200.

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[AlexL]

I have a 5M pixel camera which is set to compress the files to jpegs in the camera and the pics are about 1megabyte each. I write all the pictures onto my hard drive and then burn them onto CD to backup - CD's are only pence each so I don't bother with CDR's. I have had some of these pictures printed at upto 10x8 by snappy snaps and you cannot see either the pixelization or any artefacts caused the compression.

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[dralex]

I installed a second hard drive to back up all my photos and documents. A hard drive is still prone to damage and corruption, so I also make hard copies onto CD. It's working well so far and it's going to take a long time to fill it.

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[boatless]

Tony, I thought the best way to preserve the image was as a .tif? Can't bear the thought of compressing images and chucking away data... Media is cheap, images are irreplaceable. Best advice please!

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[boatone]

Sensible and informed use of jpg and you'd be hard pressed to show me the difference. Not a simple one sentence explanation tho. Usually u can compress down to about 10% of original file size with little or no recogniseable artefacts at print resolution. Dont keep opening and recompressing tho....bit like trying to redehydrate cadburys smash and that tastes crap the first time round ! Trick is to jpg once and keep that as archive master...then open and save back as tif or psd for working on for each new purpose. If you want ultimate quality then archiving tif or psd is going to be better.
New format jpeg2000 slowly being introduced which is less 'lossy'
Lot depends on your camera.....many domestic models only give you a jpg file anyway.


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[oldharry]

Burn the files onto a CD, or better still DVD for storeage. You can still keep the files on HD or commercial storeage as well until you are happy about using CD/DVD system as primary storeage. It also means you can access them quickly on other machines, and dont lose them if yours crashes blows its HDD

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[BrendanS]

I think the difference here is that some automatic programmes don't do a wonderful job. While individual compression to jpg can have superb results. I wouldn't let an automatic prog loose on quality shots, though the end results can be superb. Like you say, informed use of jpg does wonders.

Big thing to realise about jpg is not to keep saving each time you open, or you lose a bit of quality. Save once, then keep it that way.

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[sailorbaz]

I store my photos as jpeg images. Download IrfanView free then go to:
Image - Resize/Resample. Each photo can be reduced to less than 100 kB and the quality is still good enough for me. Back up on CD-R - about 7000 photos per CD!
It should be possible to get 47000 on a DVD-R but I haven't tried it yet. Come to think of it I'm never likely to take that many photos!
Hope this helps.
Sailorbaz

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[Guest]

CD-R's .......

<hr width=100% size=1>Cheers Nigel http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gps-navigator/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/searider/

 

[Guest]

Digi-pics

a) Setup to reduce resolution for normal pics and increase when really needed. I have normal 640-480 pics at 3mill. For other when needed size and res ... I go for 1240 size etc.
Default is probably set for max res.
b) Having had 3 digi cameras now - I found that all were jpg format ......
c) If you really want to condense down and don't mind making them up into a folder ..... make up a document and then pdf the file .... suing something like PDF Factory etc.

d) finally save to CD ....... suggest saving to 2 cd's as I have lost files on cd's ....

<hr width=100% size=1>Cheers Nigel http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gps-navigator/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/searider/

 

[Guest]

There are free web-storage sites as well.

<hr width=100% size=1>Cheers Nigel http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gps-navigator/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/searider/

 

[Guest]

USB to IDE cable and a HDD connected ....... or as I have :

USB to fancy box that takes notebook HDD ..... having upgraded so many notebooks over years - I had spare drives kicking around that I paid about 30 quid for a caddy and cable system for USB. I can unplug and change drive easily ..... so now have 1 for navigation, 1 for photos, 1 for work archives.


<hr width=100% size=1>Cheers Nigel http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gps-navigator/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/searider/